Comment by ctdonath | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ctdonath | Hacker News Reader

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As an American, I am equally puzzled.

We've had decades of sociopolitical groups pushing "social equality & justice", grossly summarized as eliminating any reason one person should have something while another should not. Much of it is valid (overcoming abject discrimination based on race, disability, gender, etc) but as those problems are solved, smaller issues are magnified into the same intensity & rhetoric, asymptotically approaching a demand for absolute equality in all things. As such, this manifests as a "war on meritocracy", whereby nobody should have "more" than anyone else for any reason whatsoever. I'd theorize that it's a combination of good intentions gone wrong, leaders having to "continue the fight" lest they work themselves out of a job thru success, ad-driven culture taught to want everything for nothing, frustration of efforts not reaping tacitly promised rewards, and straight-up greed.

Odd, as it wasn't long ago that hard work was the dominant ethos. Now it's an awful lot of "get mine" by making up excuses to take someone else's.

[downvotes commence]

I'm an American too; I don't see this happening. Straw Man.

A very large fraction of my paycheck is confiscated & "redistributed". It's happening.

Most likely it would've been a larger fraction at almost any point in the last 60 years.

Whether you like it or not, you derive innumerable tangible benefits from living in American society, in no small part because generations before you paid for it. You're probably white, male, hetero, relatively young, and relatively healthy, and none of the advantages which accrued to you because of that are due to your life choices. Arguably, you have the sense of entitlement exactly backwards.

In my experience, most of those complaining the loudest are upset that others have more than they do, not that they have more than others do. It's really more of a me-ritocracy.

This summary of social equality & justice is not something anyone should take seriously. It is a very one-sided, reductive description of the issue. If nothing else, this comment is a good example of the siege mentality on display in folk of a conservative bent: long on cynical rhetoric about "those people" and politicians while short on nuance or compassion for fellow human beings.

Long story short, some people question the idea that people who are successful deserve what they have merely because they have it, and that those who do are unsuccessful deserve to be poor because, in a word, they're meritless. Furthermore, some people want society at large to acknowledge the role chance and circumstance play in whether or not someone is successful.

Your last complaint is so old it's a cliche.

[facepalm] This retort about social equality & justice is not something anyone should take seriously. It is a very one-sided, reductive rebuttal of the issue. If nothing else, this comment is a good example of the projection mentality on display in folk of a "progressive" bent: long on cynical rhetoric about "those people" while short on understanding the underlying differences in axioms (ex.: "compassion for fellow human beings" does not involve gov't confiscation of one's income for redistribution to those able-bodied who complain sufficiently).

Long story short, some people question the idea that people who are successful deserve what they have because others agreed to give them it, and that those who are unsuccessful deserve to be poor because, in a word, they didn't earn what they don't have. Furthermore, some people want society at large to acknowledge that chance and circumstance are unfair and nobody's "fault", and the rewards of success should not be forcibly redistributed just because chance favored a ready mind.

Your post is so common it's a cliche.

We'd get somewhere in this discussion if we could discuss differences in underlying axioms, rather than hurtling insults at those with diverse views.

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